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Footfalls" Shahla Simin and Reihane Karbasi English Department, University of Isfahan

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Footfalls 24158 Shahla Simin and Reihane Karbasi/ Elixir Literature 70 (2014) 24158-24160 Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal) Literature Elixir Literature 70 (2014) 24158-24160 Psychoanalytic Feminism in Samuel Barclay Beckett's Drama "Footfalls" Shahla Simin and Reihane Karbasi English Department, University of Isfahan. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: SamuelBarclay Beckett, born near Dublin, took a degree at Trinity College (Dublin's Received: 17 March 2014; Protestant University), but then went abroad and settled for good in Paris in 1937. He has Received in revised form: lived in Paris ever since (Abrams, 1962 ). He wrote Footfalls in 1975. During the 1960s, 25 April 2014; 1970s, and 1980s, no one's critical theory of writing dominated feminist criticism because Accepted: 9 May 2014; feminist theory and criticism highlighted the personal allowing for diverse theories and approaches to textual analysis. According to Showalter, American feminism at that time Keywords was essentially textual; stressing repression, British feminism was essentially Marxist, Feminism, stressing oppression; and French feminism was essentially psychoanalytic ; stressing Psychoanalytic Feminism, repression.(Bressler, 2007) By taking a biographical approach and analysing his French Feminism, mysterious "Footfalls", the main aim of this study is to provide well supported reasons that Drama. Beckett is a real psychoanalyst in Feminism. © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved Introduction actions that we can see in this play as just going back and forth. Samuel Barclay Beckett is the 20 th century novelist and Except for the place May walks, the whole stage is in dark. The dramatistborn near Dublin, took a degree at Trinity College stage is the mind of a woman; a vague place in which she just go (Dublin's protestant university), but then went abroad and settled back and forth. In each part, the light will be somewhat darker for good in Paris in 1937. He has lived in Paris ever since, than in the preceding one. Therefore it is darkest when the strip teaching in France lycees , and serving occasionally as Joyce's is lit up without May at the very end. Correspondingly, the bell secretary, translator and critical defender-but mostly writing. gets slightly softer each time. Beckett introduced a "Dim spot on (Abrams, 1962) During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, no one face during halts at R [right] and L [left]" so that May's face critical theory of writing dominated feminist theory and would be visible during her monologues (Ackerley and criticism highlighted the personal, allowing the diverse theories Gontarski, 2006). Everything going to slow down, the sound of and approaches to textual analysis. Historically, geography the bell, the light, and the movements. The May's face is lite up played a significant role in determining the major interests of the when she speaks, when she pauses at right and left part of the various voices of feminist criticisms, with three somewhat stage. Beckett wanted to show in this part that a woman is alive distinct geographical strains of feminism emerging: American, when she speaks. British and French. These geographical divisions no longer Analysis of the Drama serve as distinct theoretical or practical boundaries, but they Beckett puts the emphasis on the sound of the May's foot, remain important historical remarks in feminism's development. the sound of a walking which leads nowhere, a walking in the (Bressler, 2007). form of a seeking which has no result. The play has a very Beckett's move to French was a turning point in his writing. musical structure and timing is critical. “The walking should be At first, he was busy writing novels, but in 1952 he started like a metronome”, Beckett instructed, “One length must be writing drama with his first masterpiece "waiting for Godot". measured in exactly nine seconds” (Asmus, 1977). “These ‘life- He even was the director of his plays. In 1975 he wrote long stretches of walking,’ he told his German May, Hildegard "Footfalls", a time which was the start of female phase; female Schmahl, are ‘the center of the play; everything else is phase is dated from 1970 to the present.(Bressler, 2007) It is secondary’”(Asmus, 1977). impossible that the last modernist, Samuel Beckett remained To ensure that every step could be heard “sandpaper was untouched with attitudes in that time. attached to the soles of [Billie] Whitelaw’s soft ballet General Background: slippers”(Knowlson, 1996) during the London premiere. Here is "Footfalls " is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in just a present person. Is she in fact a present person? Beckett English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first said to Billie Whitelaw during rehearsals for Footfalls1“Let’s performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel just say you’re not all there.” We should consider the whole Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. stage as not all there. It seems as if that the stage is a mind Billie Whitelaw, played May whilst Rose Hill voiced the suffering from a loss,Loss of a defined and definite being. mother. The matter of fact here is being lonely not alone. May is The play is in four parts. Each opens with the sound of a lonely, abandoned with her lack of a true identity. We should bell . After this the lights fade up to reveal an illuminated strip consider that "a goal of feminism is to change this view of along which a woman, May, paces back and forth, nine steps woman so that each woman will realize that she is a valuable within a one meter stretch. In Beckett's attitude a woman is person possessing the same privilegesand rights as men. As May allowed to and able to walk or better say, act in a limited space. covers the nine paces (seven in earlier printed texts) she hugs The woman as portrayed in this play is just doing repeated herself, the arms crossed, with the hands clasping the shoulders Tele: E-mail addresses: [email protected] © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved 24159 Shahla Simin and Reihane Karbasi/ Elixir Literature 70 (2014) 24158-24160 in front. ‘When you walk, you slump together, when you speak, girl do not go out of the house. The mother’s voice addresses the you straighten up a bit.’ Schmahl asked Beckett if May’s posture audience directly. She tells us that she too is watching her was supposed to express fear? “No, not fear. It expresses that daughter along with us literally through the corridor wall. We May is there exclusively for herself. She is isolated” (Asmus, learn that the turning point in May’s life, the “it” happened in 1977). girlhood: “when other girls her age were out at … lacrosse” Jacques Lacan posits that the human psyche consists of (Beckett,1998) she had already begun her obsessive pacing. three parts, or what he calls orders: the imaginary, the symbolic, From that time on significantly she has not ventured outside. and the real. Each of these orders interacts with the The only thing that shows the presence and signifies their other(Bressler, 2007). It seems as if that May is stocked in the being is the sound of the woman's footfall.May wanted to be first and did not have any space to grow to the next parts. recognized at least by her footfalls. In the beginning the hall had One of a long line of Beckett protagonists whose name been carpeted but May had asked her mother to have it taken up. begins with an M, May is a woman in her forties (who should When questioned the child had said because she needed to “hear however appear “ageless” (Asmus, 1977).She paces back and the feet, however faint they fall”; “the “motion alone is not forth on a strip of bare landing outside her dying – if not already enough”. (Beckett, 1998) The apparition in the story in Part III dead – mother’s room (a vertical ray of light not in the printed on the other hand makes “No sound. [Pause] None at least to be text suggests a door barely ajar). The door behind the stage heard” (Beckett, 1998). which is half open signifies the fact that we entered the mind of In an earlier draft, the voice tells the audience: “My voice is May. in her mind” (Mercier, 1990) suggestive of the fact that the The appearance of May is really pitiful. She has a worn out mother actually is only a figment of May’s imaginings. This is dressing-gown. As if she had been buried by her dress one time borne out by the fact that voice tells the story of a girl who before.The woman, clearly a shadow of her former self, wears “called her mother” (Beckett, 1998),” instead of simply talking tattered nightwear and has a ghostly pallor. Beckett said: “One about a girl who “called me .” This is the kind of slip May might could go very far towards making the costume quite unrealistic, make if she was narrating the mother’s part herself. unreal. It could, however, also be an old dressing-gown; worked The pitiful situation of the girl and her busy mind donot like a cobweb … It is the costume of a ghost” (Asmus, 1977) even let her to sleep. May sleeps “in snatches” with her head .As May paces back and forth on the stage, she hugs herself that bowed against the wall which is reminiscent of Mary in Watt . apparently shows how lonely she is.“You feel cold. The whole (Beckett, 1998). “Beckett explains [why] the mother interrupts time, in the way you hold your body too.
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